Mazda Toyota site selection team sees more success for Alabama ahead

Updated 3 mos ago; Posted 3 mos ago

Toyota gave $750,000 Friday to Huntsville organizations at the groundbreaking for its new joint plant with Mazda. Mazda gave another $70,000. Beneficiaries included job training programs, public schools and local charities.

The team of site selection professionals who assisted Mazda and Toyota with their location search for a new $1.6 billion plant had nothing but praise for Alabama and the City of Huntsville in a wide-ranging discussion of the project.

As part of a podcast series, the team from JLL Chicago recounted the rapid timeline for the project, which broke ground last Friday. In three podcast episodes, the team talked about how a project with about 300 potential sites located throughout the U.S. eventually settled in Huntsville.

“There are reasons there are multiple OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in their state,” Meredith O’Connor, a JLL international director, said. “As a state, they get it. They’re ready. I think we’re going to continue to see success in Alabama for these types of uses.”

O’Connor, joined by colleagues Christian Beaudoin, JLL director of research, and Trevor Ragsdale, senior managing director for JLL, recounted the journey as part of “Site Selection Stories.” The three talked about how specialists toured 20 states in less than two months with officials from Mazda and Toyota until finally zeroing in on Huntsville. The decision wasn’t finalized until last January, when executives from both companies made the announcement along with Gov. Kay Ivey in Montgomery.

Why the quick timeline? Because of the premium both companies put on being able to produce automobiles by 2021. Toyota will produce the Corolla, while Mazda will manufacture a crossover for the U.S. market.

Before several North American cities went after the Amazon project, Mazda Toyota was the coveted prize. But the scope of the project settled things early on. Some economic development specialists confronting the project couldn’t believe the scope. O’Connor said some calls asked if there were “too many zeroes” in some columns.

For example, when the economic development project first started, it simply called for up to 1,000 acres for Toyota. Then Mazda joined, and “Project New World” needed twice as many acres. The team then sifted through 100 different data points with company officials, prioritizing needs and matching them to potential sites. One need - a mile-and-a-half buffer zone.

From 300 potential sites, the list narrowed to 50 based on labor pool requirements, then the team began going to the individual sites. Helicopter tours, assessment of local education, and access to property were looked at, among a host of other factors. Everything had to be considered about the site - operations needs, logistic connections, the local labor market, and with larger tracts of land, the endangered species list was important. The larger the area, the more potential pitfalls. Concern over a rare fish species that lives near the Huntsville site briefly shut down site preparation.

“When you think of some of the site criteria, some of the good comedy, was the endangered species list that comes across thousand acre sites,” Beaudoin said.

Of special importance are one-on-one meetings, they said, and how local officials answer questions in person. There’s no way to have all the answers, but site selection professionals and executives needed to know how areas could deliver electricity, highway issues, and anything that could impact the running of a 24-hour auto assembly plant. Some areas couldn’t answer those questions, saying “we never thought of this,” Beaudoin said.

While honesty is appreciated, he said, “that isn’t really a strategy."

Many states could deliver the land, but a trained labor force, or land acquisition and site preparation were issues. The selection zeroed in on Alabama and North Carolina.

But Huntsville distinguished itself.

“There were days where we worked 18, 19 hours when we got down to the end of this,” O’Connor said. “They never wavered. They (Huntsville) were with us. They didn’t care what time of the day it was.”